Katniss and Peeta practice their strained banter for their next gig hosting the PanEm Oscars.
Continue here as The MAN tries to extinguish the Girl on Fire…
“Catching Fire”: And They All Lived Fearfully Ever After
Category Archives: Movies/Films/Flicks
Wonder Woman Finally Coming to Theaters as Sidekick to More Popular Male Heroes
For me, Wonder Woman’s golden age began in 1985. Artist/co-writer George Perez autographed my battered old copy of that year’s WW #1 at the 2012 Superman Celebration in Metropolis.
Warner Brothers confirmed on the record today that the long-neglected Wonder Woman will be featured in a live-action theatrical release for the first time in her 72-year history, and her first live-action non-bootlegged role in 34 years. This potentially historical part has been awarded to Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who was a complete unknown to me before today, though I understand she’s a regular in the Fast and the Furious series. For longtime fans who’ve been wanting to see our legendary Princess Diana on the big screen, your wish is about to be granted.
One catch: she’s not yet earned a film to have all to herself. Instead she’ll be a supporting character in Zack Snyder’s Batman vs. Superman crossover.
Treatment Suggestions for Sufferers of Repressed Spoilers Syndrome
If Daryl Dixon ever dies, your dreams of a spoiler-free Sunday evening will be beyond laughable.
Of those three fan divisions, it’s my belief that the most stressed-out and in need of help is Group 1.
Spoilers for “It’s a Wonderful Life 2: the Final Bell Rings”
Nope. They don’t believe it, either.
Variety reported Tuesday a small movie company that doesn’t own It’s a Wonderful Life is planning an official sequel — somehow, for some reason, possibly because greed minus self-awareness. Tentatively titled It’s a Wonderful Life: The Rest of the Story, the superfluous production will show George’s grandson being taught a lesson by his aunt Zuzu, now transformed into an angel. The company is hoping for a holiday 2015 release so it can compete against Star Wars Episode VII and look that much more foolish.
My 2013 Staycation Movie Marathon Report
Before Casey Affleck’s upcoming turn in Out of the Furnace, there was Gone Baby Gone, among the best in this week’s movie marathon.
This week’s marathon was hobbled a bit by a sick day, wasted on long bouts of napping and angst. We’re currently taking steps to correct the condition responsible in ways that won’t require immediate medical bills. Hopefully nothing further occurs on this front that becomes interesting enough to inspire follow-up entries. Let’s all assume I get better and live happily ever after. THE END.
Otherwise the week was relaxing and fruitful in a stress-relief sort of way, and a sizable chunk was carved out of the viewing pile. This week’s staycation feature presentations were, in order of viewing:
Yes, There Are Scenes During AND After the “Thor: the Dark World” End Credits
Thor? Thor who? Oh, you mean my sidekick?
More about America’s favorite Asgardian and his brother Thor…
Star Wars Episode VII and the Joy of Arbitrary Deadlines
One of the many lessons we learned from the Prequels Trilogy: C-3PO wasn’t built in a day. (Photo taken at the “Star Wars: Where Science Meets the Imagination” traveling exhibit, which my wife and I saw during its stop in Indianapolis last spring. That exhibit wasn’t built in a day, either.)
(As a side experiment along this vein, I’m experimenting here with a timed entry. I have sixty minutes to crank out this entry from start to finish, and whatever state it’s in when minute #60 strikes, I hit “Publish” and there will be an entry about this subject no matter what. Fortunately my special effects needs are minimal and rarely outsourced.)
“Ender’s Game”: Kids Kill the Darndest Things
If the stakes were catastrophic enough, the training techniques were sufficiently intensive, and the world were just that unforgiving, who’s to say preteens couldn’t be accelerated to maturity and transmogrified into hardened soldiers like today’s eighteen-year-old American military volunteers?
Thus is the foundation laid for Ender’s Game: in a future where millions have perished at the hands of insectoid aliens (the predominant taxonomic class of Hollywood aliens), Earth’s last hope — and who knows how many hopes were wasted before the story begins — lie in an interstellar military system built on targeting the most gifted junior high students for recruitment, instead of the older kids least likely to go to college.
“Gravity”: Connect or Perish
Zero-g leaves zero margin for error.
While we eavesdropped on the cast’s interplay during their distant grand entrance, the ambiance of their stage-setting was slightly disrupted by the sounds of the peckish viewers seated around me, rustling plastic wrappers and scarfing whatever snacks they couldn’t be bothered to finish during the preceding 25-minute trailer marathon. This sort of aural dissonance isn’t an issue when you’re watching the average summer action blockbuster that kicks off with a twenty-minute 200-decibel set piece that eradicates all sound and vibration in its path.
More about this weekend’s #1 film, which presently sits at 98% on the Tomatometer…
Siskel & Ricky Jay and Movie Magic
The Siskel Film Center: sincere, comfy, willing to showcase material beyond the major studios’ low-budget farm teams. Two thumbs up.
Indianapolis has exactly (1) one art-film theater, which leavens its offerings with a mixture of big studio fare presumably for the sake of ticket sales, thus minimizing the number of small films they can truly show during any given week. It doesn’t help that this theater and our house are on opposite ends of town. It’s my understanding other, larger cities have more options for moviegoers who yearn for something besides sequels, explosions, and big budgets. The advent of Video on Demand has charitably broadened our access to new limited-release fare, but there’s something I like about seeing films in their natural habitat.
This weekend my wife and I journeyed once again to Chicago via reasonably priced group tour. While our fellow passengers availed themselves of the Magnificent Mile’s upscale merchandise or gallivanted around Lake Michigan on water taxis, she and I paid our first visit to the Gene Siskel Film Center to view the kind of real, live documentary that rarely plays within fifty miles of our house.
Click here for more about the theater and the documentary “Deceptive Practice”…
The Last Stand of the Drive-In Theater: Upgrade or Perish
The drive-in nearest our house is the Tibbs, still standing after 46 years. For now. (Photo from our 2008 personal archives. To date I’ve seen only two of these timeless non-classics…)
In my early childhood years, I had only two options for seeing movies: squinting at them on my family’s thirteen-inch black-‘n’-white TV (and I was rarely allowed to choose what channels we watched); or seeing them writ large on the giant-sized, outdoor screen down at the drive-in theater. In a world where limited technology narrowed our choices, this competition was a no-brainer to me.
My Super Awesome Blockbuster Reboot of “E.T.”
Those eyes are pretty in the right light, but the rest of this will have to go.
February 2014 will see The Killing‘s Joel Kinnaman taking over for Peter Weller as the new Robocop. This fall Ironside returns to TV with Blair Underwood somehow replacing Raymond Burr. Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, the Lone Ranger, and the Green Hornet are but a few of the myriad characters to return from pop-culture limbo in overhauled guises. And this is the sentence I had set aside for DC Comics if I could narrow the possible examples down to less than four hundred.
At the rate our entertainment recyclers are plowing through their back catalogs, every intellectual property from the last fifty years will have been remade and/or rebooted before I’m fifty. Even if 90% of them flop, every producer, editor, or writer will convince themselves their attempt will be different from all the rest because they truly believe in themselves, if not their work. Maybe 10% of them will hit the jackpot, reap the rewards, and retire at forty.
Sounds like a sweet deal to me, even though I’m running dozens of laps behind the competition. If I’m to win, I need to move now. That’s why I’m calling dibs on E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial. It’s not taken, right? Excellent.
“The World’s End”: Midlife Crisis Begets Drinking Quest Begets Apocalypse
Under normal circumstances, a film like The World’s End would be miles outside my bailiwick. It’s been years since I could stomach flocks about man-children stalled in permanent adolescence (e.g., half the comedies starring SNL vets). I’m not interested in celebrations of the magical bonding power of alcohol (e.g., half the comedies released in the last five years). I’ve seen maybe one R-rated comedy in the last five years (Tropic Thunder had its good parts). Combine the three elements and I would anticipate the kind of mess least likely to earn a dime of my own money. Only on the strength of the talented names of Simon Pegg and director/co-writer Edgar Wright did I temporarily waive my reservations and see if the minds behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz came within a stone’s throw of the same achievement levels in wit and ingenuity.
BREAKING NEWS: Cumberbatch to Play Sir Johan in “Smurfs 3”
Prove it’s true, you ask? I say, prove that it’s NOT true! Because impeccable internet journalism.
You love him in TV’s Sherlock. You thought he was one of the best things in Star Trek Into Darkness even though he straight-up lied to the press about his character. You were annoyed by his ten-minute role in War Horse despite having no idea who he was at the time. You’re looking forward to his dual roles in Peter Jackson’s overextended Hobbit trilogy. You’re undecided about watching him play Alexander Godunov in The Fifth Estate. You noticed his name in the fine print for August: Osage County and are weighing your options.
Today is now the best day of your week because the internet has collectively decided to buy into the sketchy rumor that Benedict Cumberbatch, England’s second-biggest export of the decade after One Direction, has allegedly been cast to play an unnamed role in JJ Abrams’ still-untitled Trek sequel, Star Wars Episode VII. On a normal news day, your competent aggregator sites and discerning bloggers prefer to wait for official word from the likes of Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline Hollywood Daily, or from TV news a full two months later. Sometimes, though, some headlines are just too awesome for professional composure or baseline fact-checking. Thus, this gossip is popping up everywhere today.
Along those same lines, I’ve decided to announce the nonexistent, completely unfounded, nonetheless tantalizing rumor than Cumberbatch has also signed on to give life to the role of brave Sir Johan in Smurfs 3. Just because I can, and clearly because we geeks now demand that he star in everything ever hereafter.
“Fruitvale Station”: Last Stop, This Life
In less than ninety minutes, first-time director Ryan Coogler’s straightforward yet piercing Fruitvale Station introduces you to your new best friend, lets you hang out with him for a while, shows him at his best and worst, and then punches you in the chest while forcing you to watch helplessly as his life is taken right in front of you.
Ben Affleck IS Batman IN “Batman Presents Man of Steel 2”
It is written! Hollywood Reporter and other official sources have confirmed the Bat-hunt is over: Academy Award Winner Ben Affleck will be following in the footsteps of Christian Bale as the new Batman in the still-untitled DC film, allegedly a Man of Steel sequel even though Batman has more box-office clout, sells more comics, and inspires funnier memes.
“Elysium”: Heavy are the Burdens of the Exosuit Gladiator
Answering the most important question first: no, Elysium is nowhere near as revelatory as writer/director Neill Blomkamp’s previous film, the Oscar-nominated District 9. Constructed with four times the budget and ten times the star power, Blomkamp’s latest Important-Message sci-fi actioner is just as visually accomplished, but delivers a fraction of the impact.
America Lines Up to Preorder Sharknado Quality Merchandise
When my wife and I threw caution to the wind and watched Sharknado on Syfy (as previously reported), we were curious to know why the internet wouldn’t shut up about it. By the time the end credits sped by and Ian Ziering was transformed from a 90210 also-ran into a chainsaw-wielding hero soaked in shark fluids, we had learned an important lesson and vowed never to be curious about anything ever again. We also didn’t speak to the internet for three days.
Outside our household, Sharknado-mania is allegedly sweeping the nation. Consider the following recent headline stories:
If I Were in Charge of “Star Wars: Episode 7″…
In my version, only one of these characters survives the first five minutes. Possibly the bearded guy in the white hat. He’s already guaranteed his own action figure. (Photo from our personal Star Wars Celebration III archives, April 2005.)
Every Star Wars fan has their own ideas about what Star Wars: Episode 7 should accomplish. Director J.J. Abrams and screenwriter Michael Arndt should make it all about the Holy Trinity of Luke, Leia, and Han, pretending they’re all still under 35. Or they should make their kids the main characters. Or they should invent all-new, barely related Jedi. Or they should bring back all the dead characters because movie magic. Or it should be a mixture of demographic demands scientifically calculated to please everyone, if everyone loved formulaic sequels. Or it should be a two-hour Jar-Jar roast.
So There’s a Scene During “The Wolverine” End Credits
For the first 2½ acts, The Wolverine is an engrossing slow-burn psychological thriller about the crippling effects of grief, powerlessness, sin, rediscovering your life’s purpose, and stranger-in-a-strange-land culture clash, all nestled inside an outlandish but well-oiled martial-arts flick that easily outclasses the previous Wolverine solo film. That being said, this is a rare instance of a Marvel film that would’ve functioned more cohesively if super-villains had been kept out of it altogether.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 